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In reply to the discussion: Syrian Army, Backed By Jets, Launches Assault On Homs [View all]Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)1. Assuming that all the foreign jihadis are in Al Nusra probably understates their presence. There are other foreign jihadi groups present in Syria, including Al Qaeda in Iraq (which wants to take over Al Nusra and is squabbling with Zawahiri over that). And there are likely foreign fighters in other of the fighting formations, such as the Syrian Islamic Front.
2. All these numbers are estimates, as the report's author concedes. I haven't gotten around to looking at the endnotes, but I would be curious to see where they pulled them from.
3. Okay, three things. While I don't want to deny that there was a democratic upswelling to which the government responded harshly, I have to wonder how much of that is left in these various rebel factions. From all the accounts I've read, including this one, which is rather anodyne, the FSA is pretty much a fiction, it's every commander for himself, and it has devolved to pretty much little more than warlordism, with a good dash of what would be called terrorism anywhere else thrown in.